Dying for Chocolate

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His slippery body quieted. His cough was still ragged, but he had stopped fighting the water so hard. I began a one-armed crawl to the side. Slowly, slowly, I kicked and pulled and fought off sheer panic. My eyes burned. I swallowed the heavily chlorinated water. I couldn’t see the pool’s edge, but in a minute my head cracked the cement.

“Okay, carefully, carefully,” I said to Arch. He shook loose from me, his hands still bound, and walked suddenly up the submerged concrete steps.

“Goldy, it’s you!” said an astonished, shivering Sissy. “What happened in there? Did you push me in? What happened to Arch?”

I glanced around at my son. Despite the burn from the chlorine, my eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness. He had crouched down to bring his hands close to his feet. Savagely, he tromped on the bamboo pole with its ropes that pinned his wrists. Within a moment the bamboo broke and he wriggled his arms free.

Sissy’s hands were empty. No weapon. “Get a towel,” I ordered her, unwilling for the moment to accuse her of attempted murder or being an accessory thereto. Her face puzzled, she silently handed me a couple of small towels. I wrapped” both of them around Arch, who was sniffling hard and coughing.

“Mom, I was trying to get away from her! I thought if I could get out of the manacles quickly, I’d be able to run away!”

“It’s okay, Arch, it’s okay.” I grabbed a tarpaulin that was covering some pipes, then picked up one of the pipes. I looked around to where Sissy had been sitting. No weapon there, either—nothing but the bag, her flashlight, and her school notebook.

“Let’s all get back to the van,” I said. I reached the long-handled flashlight before Sissy could get it. “I don’t want to be here if Adele comes back. And don’t touch me or Arch,” I warned Sissy fiercely as I brandished the pipe and the flashlight. She gaped at me.

Arch said, “But, Mom, you have to look at her notebook! You have to—”

“What we have to do is get out of here,” I said curtly. Sissy marched sulkily in front of us. When we were all in the van I turned the heat to high and handed Arch the pipe and flashlight. He knew what to do with them if he needed to. Greeted by a rush of cool air from a cold engine, I turned to Sissy as we lurched forward.

“You want to tell me why you’re here?”

“I was taking care of Arch,” she whined. “Just until Adele got back with you. I don’t know what happened to her.” She added, “She was paying me to keep him there.”

“Did that include drowning him?”

“No!” she exclaimed. “Of course not! Adele gave me the bag with the tricks and just told me to make sure he practiced with the Chinese manacles tonight. That’s all.”

“And what about pushing me into the glass case at the cafe? Did she pay you for that, too, you little bitch?”

Sissy snorted. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you!” she protested. “I was just supposed to warn you off. She’s Julian’s mother! She told me! She could do so much for him financially, for his future and everything. She said you were screwing it up!”

I heard Arch gasp and cough upon hearing about Julian’s parentage.

“And yes,” Sissy was saying, “she paid me to push you. She said it would save you from being hurt.”

I was so angry I didn’t even want to talk to her. I said, “Arch? Did you see Adele with Brian Harrington out by the pool last night?”

Sissy caught her breath. Arch snuffled mightily, then coughed again. He said, “Yeah, I guess. So what? I thought she’d tell on me for turning off the security system and sneaking in late from the pool. When she didn’t, I didn’t tell on her, either.”

Ah, playground morality. I said, “You know she fixed your manacles not to work? You should have told me you saw her!” I could hear the scolding in my voice so I stopped. I was so happy to see Arch alive, I couldn’t imagine bawling him out.

Arch coughed and tried to clear his throat repeatedly as we jounced and swerved along the road to Aspen Meadow. Whenever he stopped coughing, he sniveled and shivered. Where was I supposed to take him? I felt bad about Schulz. I knew I had to go back and check on him at the Farquhars. Arch’s clean, dry clothes would be there, too. But I would only go in if the entire Furman County Sheriff’s Department assured me it was safe.

“Maman,” said Arch with a loud sniff. “Comment s’appelle felle?”

“Oh, Arch,” I said, “I’m in no mood—”

Sissy said, “This isn’t fair. My father’s the only one in my family who speaks French.”

Arch coughed. He insisted, “Comment s’appelle feller

What was Sissy’s name? What kind of question was that? I took a deep breath.

I said, “Elle s’appelle Sissy.”

“Et le surnom?” Arch persisted. “En francais, s’il vous plait. “

I shook my head. Too much stuff going on in one evening. I was not in the mood, not in the mood . . .

Slowly, my mind shifted French gears. I pulled the car over onto a narrow slice of shoulder. I turned with great deliberateness to Sissy. What was the word for stone in French?

I glared at the teenager sitting next to me.

I said, “Pierre.”

30.

“Tell me,” I said, “was the pseudonym your father’s idea?”

She sulked. Said, “No, I got it from a dictionary.”

I could feel my voice rising out of control. “Now tell me,” I shrieked, “what did I ever do to you?”

Sissy’s nostrils flared in indignation. “Julian said he wanted to be a chef. He wanted to ask if he could apprentice with you! He was going to do that instead of be a doctor! Of course I had to make you look bad!”

I should have known. The unfortunately named Goldy Bear. Julian’s grossly misguided quest. The undeniably pedantic use of language.

I said, “Sissy, if you are worth anything, which I doubt, I’m going to sue you for it. Now shut up until we get to the Farquhars.”

When we got to the end of Sam Snead Lane, lights from police cars flashed importantly at the top of the driveway. The place looked like a carnival. I drove up to the police line and asked for Schulz.

After some conferring between officers, Schulz came walking slowly down the driveway.

“Where did you go?” he demanded. His color was still awful, but his eyes were furious.

“To the school,” I said. “To get Arch.”

His face softened. “Thank God. Where is he?”

“In the van. He’s still pretty cold, and he has an awful cough. Did you find Adele?”

He rubbed his forehead. His tone was weary. “Yes and no. She got out on 1-70, turned off her lights, made a U-turn on the median. Hightailed it back here. She’s in that damn storage area screaming about a detonator. They’re trying to talk to her.”

My heart quaked with fear for Bo. “What about the general—”

“He’s okay, on his way to Denver in an ambulance. Soon as he recovers we’re going to book him.”

“Oh, that’s nice. For what?”

“For breaking every explosives-storage law on the books, thank you very much.”

There was some shouting from the top of the driveway. A wave of police officers came running out toward their vehicles, shouting about clearing the area.

Suddenly there was a flash and a boom. We were all thrown to the cement. Booms, hisses, more booms. I covered my head and hoped that the van had not been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Light erupted and then abruptly went out. The booms wouldn’t stop.